Abbey of Aurillac

The abbey of Aurillac (in Auvergne, current department of the Cantal) was founded in 885, by the count Géraud d' Aurillac. The abbey was a intellectual center of foreground to the traditional Middle Ages, while the city is one of the sauvetées first. Its weapons are “Semi gold party to engrêlure of sinople as a chief, and sinople with gold engrêlure around.”

Foundation

Context: France at the beginning of Xe century

(in progress)… the rule of holy Benoît is not complied with any more with the letter. Written at the 6th century, the rule bénédictine provided that the monks are directed by an abbot and that they share their time between the prayer and manual work. At the beginning of the 9th century, Benoît d' Aniane tries to diffuse it in all the monasteries of the Carolingian empire. But manual work is forsaken with the profit of the prayer. The laic ones name abbots who are faithful and consequently control the land fields of the regular establishments for them.

A Benedictine abbey independent of the secular capacity

Géraud considered that its field which extended between Mount-in Auvergne, Rouergue, Périgueux and Tullle was freehold and he wanted to never pay homage to anybody for his grounds, except that of Talizat because, explains us Odon of Cluny, its situation in Planèze out of the Mountains of Auvergne did not enable him to defend itself of it the inhabitants. Vainly his/her Guillaume cousin, duke of Aquitaine and count d' Auvergne, him-proposed it to recommend themselves to him and to profit from his protection.

As soon as it had given all its field to the abbey which it founded (towards 865), Géraud behaved as if it were itself the first abbot and wire it Hommage to the pope: he stated to hold of him all the grounds, castles and other possessions, and, as a sign of that, he obliged to pay in the Holy See a annual taxable quota of a gold mesh.

Géraud obtains also a Charles-the-Simple Charte of safeguard of given to Bourges in 914.

It also obtained that its field is free and free from any episcopal jurisdiction and that it raises only of the pope, as well as a bishop, reason for which the abbot of Aurillac was itself miter and stick.

This fanchise and this immunity will be renewed by several popes and several kings.

Construction of the abbey

It is Géraud d' Aurillac which, into 898, throws the bases of the new abbey, delimits the enclosure of sound enclosed in the full one which is below the castle of Aurillac and the old church Saint-Clement where his/her parents were buried, and which, during eighteen years, makes build the first church Abbatiale devoted in 916 pennies the term of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul.

The church will be rebuilt larger by the fifth abbot, Géraud de Saint-Céré and will be devoted into 972 per Etienne, bishop of Auvergne, assisted bishops of Périgueux and Cahors.

A city independent of the political power

After dedication of first abbey church in 916, Géraud of Aurillac frees hundred first serfs (maximum number that the Roman law allowed), and delimits a vast territory between four crosses that it gives to all those which will want there to be established. This frank freehold, which is at the origin of the town of Aurillac, is one of the known sauvetées first.

Géraud had wanted the stamping gracious from all the serfs of its field. Thereafter one will never find no trace of serfdom in cete area.

History of the abbey

List abbots

See also: List of the abbots of Aurillac

  1. Adalgarius (898-914)
  2. Jean (914-ca920)
  3. Odon of Cluny (ca920-926)
  4. Arnulphe (926-ca940)
  5. Adralde (ca940-970)
  6. Géraud de Saint-Céré (ca970-987)
  7. Raymond de Lavaur (987-1010), was the écolâtre of Gerbert d' Aurillac.
  8. Adroalde of Saint-Christophe (1010-1039)
  9. Géraud de Vaxia (1039-)
  10. Géraud de Caussade (-)
  11. Géraud de Capdenac
  12. Emile (/1061-1074)
  13. Pierre de Limagne (1074-)
  14. Pierre de Cézens (ca920-926)
  15. Pierre de Roquenatou (926-1117)
  16. Gosbert (1117-1134)
  17. Pierre d' Alzons (1155-1159)
  18. Gaucelin d' Alzons (1155-1159)
  19. Martin of Beaune (1561-1578)
  20. Aloïsius Pisani (1568-1570)

The apogee (Xe - XIIIe centuries)

See also: Order clunisien

The abbey grows rich quickly thanks to immense liberalities by Jean, the second abbot who was of the family of Gérauud, of a Aldegarde countess, several counts de Toulouse and of Poitiers, and many other lords. Grace also to the gifts of faithful and the Pilgrims since it was a place of pilgrimage on the road of Rome by the Alps by Puy, of Catalonia and Saint-Jacques-with-Compostelle; it had built along these routes a network of priories which were used as relay to the travellers like the hospital Holy-Marie-of-Mount, to the collar of the Mount-Cébro in Cerdagne.

According to a bubble of Nicolas IV gone back to 1289, the abbey of Aurillac had more than one hundred Prieuré S, become thereafter as much of Paroisse S, then of common, located in seventeen different dioceses. Their fields producing on this date more than 80.000 books of revenue. In diocese of Agen, one finds the priories of Montsempron, Montalazat, Lédat, Almayrac, Saint-Face, etc. In that of diocese of Toulouse priory of Saint-Sulpice, the castle of Soliniac, churches of Cambiac, of Varennes, Saint-Pierre-and-Saint-Paul-of-Toulouse, etc…

Aurillac, a major center of culture

The abbey, which very early had a library and a scriptorum, constituted a intellectual and cultural hearth important as of Xe century: one knows it by the correspondence of Gerbert with his old écolâtre, that it got ancient manuscripts with its old abbey. One also knows it by the testimony of Jean de Saliburry, bishop of Charter which died in 1181 when he speaks about the monks of Luxeuil: " They are the Masters, not only men eloquent, but of the eloquence even, because, (they are) equal in several points to the monks of Aurillac who acquired a great skill and a long practice of a great number of sciences." One as finds in the literary History of France, volume VI, p. 23, as " Aurillac, monastery which had been founded at the end of the previous century per Géraud saint, was the principal cradle of the renewal of the letters which was done with Xe siècle."

Famous hosts

Remained in Aurillac:
  • Borell II of Barcelona
  • Gerbert d' Aurillac
  • Louis the Piles
  • Urbain II came in Aurillac conscrer the new monastery (bubble of April 19th, 1096), under the abbatiat of Pierre de Cézens which had attended in 1095 the Concile of Clermont where the premire crusade was initiated.
  • Guillaume of Auvergne, minister and adviser of Saint-Louis

Decline and destruction of the buildings

As from the 16th century, the abbey of Aurillac uses a process of secularization: starting from a bubble of the pope Black and white IV dated May 13rd 1561, under the abbatiat of Martin of Beaune, chancellor of the queen Catherine de Médicis who had named it against the opinion of the monks. His/her brother, who was an usurer become Minister for Finance, will be relieved and condemned to died for misappropriation. The Abbot S Joint mandatory S, cease being elected by the chapter and residing in the abbey.

A little later under the abbatiat of the cardinal Aloïsius Pisani, noble Venetian who came only for his nomination, the town of Aurillac is tackled and taken the Tuesday the 6th sptembre 1569 by a band calvinist which founds a true mode of terror. Church, convent, abbey palate, sculptures, tombs, all imitoyablement were destroyed and set fire to. All the noble metals are molten and carried towards Geneva, all the books, manuscripts, files of the abbey are piled up on the place and are burned. In the name of princes de Navarre and of Cop, all the properties of the abbey: grounds, buildings, rights, pieces of furniture, are sold with the auction during several days during bidding public where one sees foreign purchasers coming from everywhere. For fourteen months, the inhabitants of the city are held to ransom, tortured, to see assassinated, to extort their money to them.

Today, there does not remain large thing of the old monastery: some sides of the church Saint-Pierre and Saint Paul incorporated in the church Saint-Géraud, the Romance frontage of the old hospital, some square towers which took part in its defense system to announce by fires the arrival of enemies.

Heraldic

Weapons of the abbey of Aurillac : Semi gold party to engrêlure of sinople as a chief, and sinople with gold engrêlure around .
Support: a miter and a stick marking the spiritual sovereignty of the chief abbeys of order.

Photographs

See too

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